16 FABLeS Fall OUIl TIMe--V A DANISH stork was in the habit of spending six nights a week out on the town with the boys, drinking and dicing and playing the match game. His wife had never left their nest, which was on a chimney top, since he married her, for he did not want her to get wise to the ways of the male. '\Then he got home, which was usually at four o'clock in the morning- unless the party had gone on to Reuben's -he always brought her a box of candy and handed it to her together with a stork story, which is the same as a cock- and-bull story. "I've been out delivering babies," he would say. "It's killing me, b .. d " " ' X T d ut It 1S my uty to go on. 'v ho a you deliver babies for?" she asked one morning. "Human beings," he said. "A human being cannot have a baby with- out help from someone. All the other animals can, but human beings are help- less. They depend on the other animals for everything from food and clothing to companionship." Just then the phone rang and the stork answered it. "An- other baby on the way," he said when he had hung up. "I'll have to go out again tonight." So that night he went out again and did not get home until seven-thirty in the morning. "Thish was very speshul case," he said, handing his wife a box of candy. "Five girls." He did not add that the five girls were all blondes in their twenties. After a while the female stork got to thinking. Her husband had told her never to leave the nest, because the world was full of stork traps, but she began to doubt this. So she flew out into the world, looking and listening. In this way she learned to tell time and to take male talk with a grain of salt; she found out that candy is dandy, as the poet has said, but that licker is quick- er; she discovered that the offspring of the human species are never brought into the world by storks. This last dis- covery was a great blow to her, but it was a greater blow to Papa when he came home the next morning at a quarter to six. "Hello, you phony ob- stetrician," said his wife coldly. "How are all the blonde quintuplets today?" And she crowned him with a chimney brick. Moral: The lnale was lnade to lie and roam, but woman's place is in the home. O NCE upon a time a crow fell in love with a Baltimore oriole. He had seen her flying past his nest every spring on her way North and every au- tumn on her way South, and he had decided that she was a tasty dish. He had observed that she came North every year with a different gentleman, but he paid no attention to the fact that all the gentlemen were Baltimore orioles. "Anybody can have that mouse," he said to himself. So he went to his wife and told her that he was in love with a Baltimore oriole who was as cute as a cuff link. He said he wanted a divorce, so his wife gave him one simply by opening the door and handing him his h " D ' . h at. on t come crYIng to me w en she throws you down," she said. "That fly-by-season hasn't got a brain in her head. She can't cook or sew. Her up- per register sounds like a streetcar tak- ing a curve. You can find out in any ð ( '" t \\\ \ . \ \ 1'\:,1." ",ø- '-'7:- ;." 'f,ah'ç I /..,r " '-; : f\IJ/' n:!:,t I Ú':/2;: /' jl;'/'LI/ - /. ........ ./" / """__.........,........ -,;IT - ---:::::;.-"",,/ .'- -..:-.::- ........_-- ..- - ; './ - --. t. dictionary that the crow is the smartest and most capable of birds-or was till b " " T h , " " d h you ecame one. us. sal t e male crow. "Pish! You are simply a jealous woman." He tossed her a few dollars. "Here," he said, "go buy your- self some finery. You look like the bot- tom of an old teakettle." And off he went to look for the oriole. This was in the springtime and he met her coming North with an oriole he had never seen before. The crow stopped the female oriole and pleaded his cause-or should we say cawed his pleas? At any rate, he courted her in a harsh, grating voice, which made her laugh merrily . "You sound like an old window shutter," she said, and she snapped her fingers at him. "I am big- ger and stronger than your gentleman friend," said the crow. "1 have a vo- cabulary larger than his. All the orioles in the country couldn't even lift the corn I own. I am a fine sentinel and my voice can be heard for miles in case of danger." "I don't see how that could interest anybody but another crow," said the female oriole, and she laughed at him and flew on toward the North. The male oriole tossed the . " H " h . d " crow some COIns. ere, e saI, go buy yourself a blazer or somethIng. You look lIke the bottom of an old coffee- " pot. The crow flew back sadly to his nest, but his wife was not there. He found a note pinned to the front door. "I have gone away with Bert," it read. ,cY" ou will find some arsenic in the medicine chest." M oral: Even thp llaJna should stick to maJnma. AN elephant who lived in Africa ..ll.. woke up one morning with the con viction that he could defeat a11 the other animals in the world in single com- bat, one at a time. He wondered that he hadn't thought of it before. After breakfast he called first on the lion. "You are only the King of Beasts," bel- lowed the elephant, "whereas I am the ii\ce!" and he demonstrated his prow- ess by knocking the lion out in fifteen min utes, no holds barred. Then in quick succession he took on the wild boar, the water buffalo, the rhinoceros, the hip- popotamus, the giraffe, the zebra, the eagle, and the vulture, and he conquered them all. After that the elephant spent lTIOst of his time in bed eating peanuts, while the other animals, who were now his slaves, built for him the largest house any animal in the world had ever had. It was five stories high, solidly made of the hardest woods to be found in Africa. \\Then it was finished, the Ace of Beasts moved in and announced that he could pin back the ears of any animal in the world. He challenged all comers to meet him in the basement